Autoethnography as a decolonising tool: bringing identity into the classroom

ABSTRACT

The need to include indigenous perspectives in curricula is a challenge facing education internationally. In the context of higher education, decolonising practices and processes are the responsibility not just of institutions but also individual academics. Despite individual aspirations to decolonise teaching, it can be difficult to know where to start. Our aim is to guide others to engage in teaching practices that seek to decolonise. To do this we outline our respective teaching and research experiences that are united by our use of critical autoethnography in workshops we have designed for our respective teaching in different institutions. Our paper describes different ways to bring into focus the lived experience and nuanced views of groups who, through the process of colonisation, have not previously been given space or voice in higher education. Enabling the inclusion of indigenous enquiry within classroom settings provides a valuable decolonisation tool for groups such as the indigenous Māori population in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our practices seek to create space to prioritise storytelling, the sharing of researcher positionality, and personal identity in a way that centralises indigenous perspectives. We argue that these autoethnographic practices help teachers and students to hold hegemonic systems to account, explore strengths-based solutions and express aspirations for the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous autoethnography
• Kaupapa Māori
• decolonisation
• critical pedagogy
• reflective practice

Introduction

Decolonisation in higher education (HE) is an increasingly important international topic, discussed in relation to institutional, disciplinary and pedagogical practices, motivated by equity and reconciliation purposes, and as part of activist praxis (Ahuriri-Driscoll et al., 2021; Carey & Prince, 2015; Chawla & Atay, 2018; Macdonald et al., 2023; McNamara & Naepi, 2018; Moosavi, 2022; Pihama, 2016; Smith, 1999; Wimpenny et al., 2022). A number of academics have been considering how to respond to the calls to decolonise and indigenise curricula in countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter Aotearoa), Australia, Canada, Singapore, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium. These academics have been motivated by policy imperatives, personal ethics and disciplinary viewpoints mediated by context (Ahuriri-Driscoll et al., 2021; Carey & Prince, 2015; Macdonald et al., 2023; McNamara & Naepi, 2018; Moosavi, 2022; Wimpenny et al., 2022). As academics in Aotearoa, we have been motivated by these factors including the need to honour the Treaty of Waitangi and work within policies, such as the Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) that prioritises Māori learners (MoE, 2022). Māori are the indigenous population of Aotearoa and the Treaty between Māori and the government safeguards a number of rights. Article one enshrines the state’s right to govern; article two protects the right to self-determination for Māori people; article three requires the state to provide equal rights to Māori as New Zealand citizens (DPMC, 2023). The purpose of this paper is to reflect on our attempts to decolonise in our respective hauora (health) and social policy HE classrooms from two different standpoints, that of an indigenous (Arianna Nisa-Waller) and a white (Gemma Piercy) academic. Utilising positionality rather than standpoint theory, we focus on the use of autobiographical insights to demonstrate how autoethnographic practices can inform decolonial processes within ourselves as academics and in HE classrooms (Madison, 2011; Wimpenny et al., 2022).

We also use the retelling of our history to incorporate our positionality as students, teachers, and researchers. We do this to share our strength but also our vulnerability in pursuing decolonial pedagogy. In this sense our paper is a duo-ethnography (Rinehart & Earl, 2016), informed and shaped by our individual practices of autoethnography as researchers and teachers that we actively share and reflect on together (Piercy, 2018; 2022; Waller, 2016). We also argue that the use of storytelling was foundational to the building of our relationship, first as student and teacher and now as teachers supporting each other.

Our paper is split into two stories that trace the identity and teaching practices of each author and the connections that these practices enabled, historically between us and currently in our different classrooms. Arianna’s story highlights the origins of their values and the explicit application of these values through practices within the University of Otago that aim to decolonise. Gemma’s story explains their teaching values and the platform these values provide to incorporate decolonial tenets. We end with our joint reflections to illustrate how critical autoethnographic pedagogy provides a basis to enact but also remain alert to the limits of decolonial processes in HE classrooms (McNamara & Naepi, 2018; Moosavi, 2022).

Decolonisation

Given our identities as Māori (indigenous) (Arianna) and Pākehā (European/white) (Gemma), it is important to acknowledge that the process of decolonisation to us does not encompass a rejection of Western academic worldviews. Rather it emphasises the inclusion and prioritisation of indigenous beliefs and values in our classrooms, alongside a critique of colonisation (Grande, 2008; Leenen-Young et al., 2021; McNamara & Naepi, 2018). Furthermore, we accept a distinction made in literature between post-colonialism and decolonisation in that one is a theoretical position and a destination while decolonisation is a process, a way of moving towards that destination (Chawla & Atay, 2018). These distinctions are important, as the terms ‘decolonisation’, ‘post-colonial’ and ‘indigenisation’ are subject to debate and are in flux (Chawla & Atay, 2018; Bullen & Flavell, 2022; McNamara & Naepi, 2018; Moosavi, 2022; Wimpenny et al., 2022).

Decolonisation is often described as a liberatory project for indigenous groups, implying the need to overthrow or reject Western systems (Ahuriri-Driscoll et al., 2021; Alfred & Corntassel, 2005; Moosavi, 2022; Pihama, 2016; Smith, 1999). Given the colonial context of HE, ambitions to decolonise need to be accompanied by critical examination of the HE context and of the academic self, as internalised colonial curricula shape disciplinary imperatives (McNamara & Naepi, 2018; Moosavi, 2022; Wimpenny et al., 2022). As Moosavi (2022) argues, robust and theoretically informed reflection on one’s own teaching practice must be part of decolonisation practices. Therefore, we acknowledge that attempts to decolonise must always be accompanied by the need to own the limitations inherent within ourselves and the wider disciplinary and institutional contexts that shape our work.

One means for working towards decolonisation in the context of HE is to include indigenous knowledge explicitly within pedagogy and wider institutional practices and processes. The decision to incorporate indigenous values and knowledge into course design is a practice some term ‘indigenisation’ (Ahuriri-Driscoll et al., 2021; McNamara & Naepi, 2018). Indigenisation is also a way for indigenous academics to reclaim indigenous knowledge and philosophies to resist the colonising context of HE (Leenen-Young et al., 2021). In addition to the personal drives of the indigenous and allied academic, the need to indigenise is a policy imperative at national and institutional levels (Ahuriri-Driscoll et al., 2021; Carey & Prince, 2015; Macdonald et al., 2023; MoE, 2022; Wimpenny et al., 2022). For example, at both of our respective institutions, internal inquiries have led to the identification of institutional racism, prompting the development of policies to address discrimination and prioritise Treaty obligations (University of Otago, 2023; University of Waikato, 2021).

Thus, for our purposes the act of decolonising is a relational, reiterative and fluid process that places traditional knowledges into contemporary locations. In terms of our classroom practices, one influential example is Red Pedagogy. Developed by Native American scholar Sandy Grande (2008), Red Pedagogy ‘is a space of engagement. It is at the liminal and intellectual borderlands where indigenous and non-indigenous scholars encounter one another, working to remember, redefine, and reverse the devastation of the original colonialist encounter’ (p. 234). Grande’s (2008) approach combines indigenous insights with critical pedagogy arguing that: ‘education for decolonization must also make no claim to political neutrality. Specifically, it must engage a method of analysis and social inquiry that troubles the capitalist, imperialist aims of unfettered competition, accumulation, and exploitation’ (p. 236). Thus, part of reversing the devastation of the original colonial encounter is to engage in critical pedagogies (Denzin, 2018; Freire & Freire, 2014; Giroux, 2005; Grande, 2008; Knowles et al., 2005; Mezirow, 1998; Pihama, 2016; Smith, 1999).

Grande’s (2008) combination of critical pedagogy with indigenous insights provides a framework to facilitate a relational process of decolonisation in research and teaching (MacDonald et al., 2023). Critical pedagogy can be characterised by, for example, the way educators make power structures and oppressive forces visible to students (Denzin, 2018; Giroux, 2005). Red Pedagogy also includes sharing forms of indigenous knowledge such as the centrality of land to identity, and the role of sovereignty as a right and solution to the ills of colonisation (Grande, 2008; Smith, 1999). As such, Red Pedagogy represents one way to indigenise HE curriculum.

Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a particular form of ethnography, but rather than focusing on place or a community, the researcher takes themselves as the subject of inquiry (McIlveen et al., 2010). But it is more than just writing about the self, as ‘it is the systematic engagement with culture (ethnos) that distinguishes autoethnography from autobiography’ (Adams, Boylorn & Tillman, 2021, p. 3). It is also research, writing and that allows authors to be emotional, personal and subjective (Averett, 2009; Cann & DeMeulenaere, 2012; Ellis, 2004). Significantly, autoethnography as a research practice has a particular affinity with indigenous ways of knowing (see Waller, 2016; Bainbridge, 2007; Denzin, 2018; Iosefo et al., 2020; Kainamu, 2012; Walker, 2019; Whitinui, 2014; Williams, 2021).

Like Grande’s Red Pedagogy (2008), Denzin’s (2018) performance autoethnography aligns with critical pedagogy in that he urges researchers to analyse personal experiences, drawing on academic discourse to reflect on structure and power relations. By doing so autoethnographers can demonstrate ‘how power works to dominate and marginalize particular groups within society’ (Cummings, 2021, p. 155). This critical approach to autoethnography is grounded in indigenous and queer autoethnographic practices as liberatory projects (Cummings, 2021; Denzin, 2018; Iosefo et al., 2021). As such autoethnographic practice can bring ‘diverse knowledges further into the academy’ (Iosefo et al., 2020, p. 4) and provide a platform for voices likely to be marginalised in mainstream academic publications, such as indigenous groups (Denzin, 2018; Iosefo et al., 2020; Williams, 2021). It is important to note that despite the affinity between indigenous ways of knowing and autoethnography, indigenous voices still do not dominate the vast number of autoethnographic publications (Chawla & Atay, 2018; Iosefo et al., 2020; Williams, 2021).

In addition to shaping research and writing practices, autoethnography is also used as part of classroom practices in all levels of the education system (Barr, 2018; Coleman, 2022; Kitchin, 2021; Pithouse-Morgan et al., 2022). Although autoethnography is being applied in different ways in different disciplines there are common themes. The first is the potential for autoethnographic techniques to be transformative for students (Barr, 2018; Coleman, 2022; Kitchin, 2021; Pithouse-Morgan et al., 2022). The second is an emphasis on the need to and benefits of exposing students to curriculum that is critical, revealing power relations, simultaneously supported by an ethos of social justice, kindness and compassion for the self and others (Coleman, 2022; Denzin, 2018; Pithouse-Morgan et al., 2022). By helping students locate themselves, their own stories, their own subject positions or standpoints, students can engage with texts looking for connection to their own lives, values or place, informed by critical social theory (Coleman, 2022; Denzin, 2018). The use of autoethnography also provides creative and engaging ways for students to write assignments disrupting the limits imposed by disciplinary frameworks (Barr, 2018; Piercy, 2022). The disruption of fixed ideas and accepted practices through the application of critical social theory, alongside the advocacy for marginalised indigenous voices and knowledge, aligns autoethnography with decolonisation.

Our use of autoethnography in our teaching is designed to create change, reinforcing Denzin’s (2018) argument that autoethnography places narrative or storytelling as a political act. The sharing of self is part of Palmer’s (2007) pedagogy that he uses to challenge the power structures inherent in the teacher–student relationship. In this sense the inclusion of the personal is also core to forming connections with students in a relational sense through the principle of kaitiakitanga (guardianship/protection). Thus, our use of critical autoethnography in this paper is an autobiographical exploration of our development and co-construction(s) of our critical pedagogies in our respective HE institutions and subjects, informed by critical social theory, autoethnography, and red pedagogy (Denzin, 2018; Grande, 2008; Waller, 2016).

Autoethnographic accounts

Arianna: developing my own relational praxis

My values developed during different parts of my life in the education system. My earliest memories of education are grounded in my experiences at Kōhanga Reo (Māori language preschool). Being included in an environment where my language was spoken and the stories of my whakapapa (genealogy lineage, descent) were shared, reinforced a continual feeling of safety and completeness. Kōhanga Reo was a space that reflected and included whānau (family), my marae (meeting grounds, centre of community events), my people and my whakapapa (Smith, 2003).

When I entered mainstream school at the age of five my yearning for Kōhanga and the absence of everything it represented meant my sense of self slowly eroded away.

I had no idea what or who I was without my whānau teaching me about pūrakau (Māori myths), singing our iwi (tribe) and hapū (sub-tribe) songs and the constant recital of my pēpēha (tribal sayings of ancestors and geographic connections) at a very young age. (Waller, 2016, p. 3)

A year later a rūmaki (total immersion unit within a mainstream primary school) was set up to better respond to the educational and cultural aspirations of Māori students and their whānau. In this place I was completely nurtured by my teacher who led from a mātauranga Māori perspective (knowledge, wisdom, education). Not only was she fluent in te reo Māori (the Māori language), her kaupapa Māori values (education programme/policy) were familiar to me. Her warmth meant every day I was in her class, I felt seen, heard and valued.

At intermediate school, I was in a bilingual class that still included a painful transition into a wider and deeply threatening mainstream environment that I found difficult to navigate (Sonn et al., 2000). This was hard on my spirit, but I never gave up. I worked hard to read and speak English while still retaining my commitment to uplift the cultural endeavours of my tūpuna (ancestors). From this experience however, I knew I had to make changes and I asked my Nan to fund my attendance at a Māori Girls’ College (an all-female Māori boarding school, with the option of rūmaki (total immersion) for years 9 and 10). The teachers at the school empowered us as young Māori women to stand in the power of our Māori identity. This was expressed through kapa haka, karanga, song, activism, waka ama, shared values and the maintenance of our connection to te ao wairua and te ao Māori (Waller, 2016).

Despite being immersed in a culturally safe place mainstream curriculum was still taught and I struggled to make sense of the contradictions of the histories of other countries being shared and the absence or denial of our history through the formal curriculum. I encountered this tension again as a student at university. However, when I encountered these tensions, I did so with the values and identity that my immersion education had given me (Waller, 2016).

My work across a range of roles within the stale halls of academia has motivated me to develop a critical pedagogy with the intention to disrupt the colonial views that shape HE (Bishop et al., 2009; Ellis, 2021; MacNamara & Naepi, 2019; Smith, 1999; Sonn et al., 2000; Waller, 2016). To do this I use critical autoethnography to operate values-based teaching. In doing so, I present a values-led pedagogical model that privileges Māoricentric values incorporating a kaupapa Māori approach (Bishop et al., 2009; Smith, 2003). These values reflect the centrality of te reo Māori, place, and reflecting on identity to know oneself (Bishop et al., 2009; Smith, 1999; Waller, 2016). In essence my values are: Tiakina ou teina (nurture the younger generation); Tiakina ou tuahine/tungane (look after your sisters/brothers/peers); Tiakina ngā tupuna (look after your elders/ancestors); Manaakitia te reo (nurture your language); and Tiakina te kainga/whenua (maintain and care for your cultural and personal home and land for the benefit of future generations). These values are informed by my own experiences but also by my relationships with my elders, whānau and a range of teachers including Gemma.

These values come from being deeply inquisitive about the world I lived in and being raised deep in the stories and narratives of what it meant to be Māori. These stories formed my every thought and action and embedded a sense of cultural responsibility to carry the gifts and knowledge systems of my tupuna (ancestors) forward. Through my lens, Māori identity can only be seen as a strength; however, when I was thrust into the world of mainstream academia, I quickly felt that my worldview and strengths-based positioning was being completely eroded by a mainstream system that never made any space for my people, a system ill-equipped to receive us (Leenen-Young et al., 2021; Sonn et al., 2000). Therefore, my journey through academia has been about experiencing the push and pull of struggle and resistance in pursuit of space and transformation (Leenen-Young et al., 2021).

When I started teaching the Hauora Māori (Māori health) curriculum across a range of health professional programmes, it made sense to me to replicate a values-based approach in the classroom. Within the context of teaching Māori health, I teach the arguments for improving Māori health outcomes, and I share the message that Māori health is the responsibility of everyone. In the classroom, I seek to decolonise by making the legacy of colonisation visible, which in turn allows me to set forth a Māori development agenda, while remaining responsive to the diverse learning needs of students; diverse not only in terms of their indigenous or non-indigenous state but also in terms of their academic discipline and level of study. Part of meeting their diverse needs through this teaching practice is about meeting students exactly where they are and privileging the multiple ways they view and engage with the world around them. In her discussion on Red Pedagogy, Grande argues that ‘sovereignty is not a separatist discourse. On the contrary, it is a restorative process.' As Warrior (1995) suggests, indigenous peoples must learn to ‘withdraw without becoming separatists,’ and we must be ‘willing to reach out for the contradictions within our experience’ and open ourselves to ‘the pain and the joy of others’ (p. 124) (as cited in Grande, 2008, p. 247).

One of the most important insights I had was learning how all students, regardless of background, socioeconomic status or ethnicity, are attuned to seeking out a feeling of connection and a sense of belonging and safety. This is a feeling that resonates with my experiences of the tertiary environment. By sharing a Māori worldview with students in a way that embraces their different stories and their different identities, I am able to challenge the way colonisation creates oppositional identities between the oppressed and oppressors. For my students, reflective practice is now a core learning component (Bishop et al., 2009). These practices are distilled into the classroom by creating space to discuss identity; a discussion privileged above academic content. Bringing students’ stories into the classroom breaks down the distance between student and teacher, challenging traditional power structures and embracing multiple subjectivities (Palmer, 2007).

I put these decolonising strategies into practice in a range of ways, two of which are outlined below. I begin my classes by first developing a strong sense of community and safety through the process of whakawhanaungatanga (building relationships and connections). It begins in the very first class. Instead of going through the course outline, I put the chairs in a circle, disrupting the power structures embedded in the physical classroom. I talk until the unfamiliar becomes familiar and a shared vision for the course is established. Students realise through this process that they are more similar than they are different. To do this, I ask them specific questions – what brings you here? If we were to imagine we are going on a journey in search of new land and you could only bring three things, what would you bring?

The second step occurs over time and is a relational process. The practices here are informed by how, as a sociologist, I had become interested in the composition of identity and the power relations that shape identity production. By extending the processes of whakawhanaungatanga over two weeks, I encourage students to develop a stronger sense of self – of identity – that allows them to connect to their own whakapapa, wherever it is located, and to have a healthy respect for the journeys of others. The connection to place is also used by Coleman (2022) as she introduces her students to the practice of visual autoethnography in the classroom. My use of this term, however, is informed by tikanga (definition) and the importance of helping students, indigenous and non-indigenous connect to the land.

When these ideas around identity and connection are taught to students, it can be confronting, but if the students can manage this process, then it can be truly transformational. If I can appeal to students’ desire for belonging, then students can find a sense of safety. I do this by drawing on my experiences with autoethnography, supporting students to explore and share their own journeys in life. The students I work with often share that my classroom is the first time they have been enabled to share not just their identity but how they might connect that identity to a specific place and time. My approach also achieves the goal of helping students connect to the workshop content from their own subject position or identity (Denzin, 2018; Madison, 2011).

The act of connection grounds the students and deepens their sense of personal identity. The relational process of freely sharing te ao Māori and using it to help students connect to their own identities and their own sense of belonging or place becomes a crucial decolonising practice. The relational process also means that together we are creating a tool for the future in that students are supported to decolonise and create safe spaces in their encounters outside of the classroom. Students’ experiences in my classroom help them see the value of building connection and safety in further study environments and within the places and organisations in which they will work.

It is also an empowering process. I find it awe inspiring when even the most anxious of students blossom into confident public speakers who are passionate about Māori health and improving Māori health outcomes. These practices have helped me realise three very important things. The first is that my strategies for success in transition are strategies not just for retention, but strategies to retain students that thrive in the University environment. The second is that these strategies are important for both Māori and non-Māori students to succeed in the University context and even beyond. Third, my practices also remind me that progress can be made to decolonise, even if slow and incremental in nature.

Gemma: decolonial practices as a white teacher

I met Arianna in a second-year social policy class in 2010. In this class, I aim to ground students right from the start into seeing the connection between structure and agency. This is important because a fundamental topic in social policy is social exclusion. To combat the dominant thinking that focuses on individual responsibility, I discuss the relationship between inequality and privilege. Inspired by Jack Mezirow’s (1998) transformational adult education philosophies and Freire & Freire (2014) and Giroux’s (2005) critical pedagogy, I seek to create opportunities for students to engage in reflective thinking about themselves and the power relations that shape their lives. To do this, I also draw on aspects of andragogy, which emphasises the importance of using adult students’ personal experiences to enhance the teaching process (Brookfield, 1983; Knowles et al., 2005). To facilitate this, I invite students to use the first workshop to pause and reflect on their identity in a much broader sense – for example, to locate themselves in relation to their class, gender, sexuality, age, whakapapa/iwi and/or geographical location in an exercise that defines the concept of positionality (Madison, 2011). In sharing their personal stories with each other, first in pairs and then with the class, students are supported to think through their identity in terms of structure and power relations.

Underpinned by the process of creating shared rules to ensure safety, the discussion in the first workshop is designed to roam over different identity markers that reflect the presence of the privilege that societal power relations provide to some groups and deny others. To do this, I provide some sociological content explaining interpellation and subject positions (Changing works, 2023). Interpellation is the process of being hailed or being recognised as belonging to a social group by others. The process of hailing also speaks to how individuals can internalise stereotypes not just in relation to recognising others, but in recognising themselves (Althusser , 2001). I scaffold students into this process through an explanation of my own subject position, creating points of commonality and a sense of democracy. I am clear with them that if I expect them to be vulnerable in my classroom, it is my role to be vulnerable first. However, I make it clear that while I am able and willing to make myself vulnerable, students only share as much or as little information as they want to, emphasising the importance of their feeling confident and comfortable with the exercise.

By sharing personal parts of myself, I engage in the practices that Palmer (2007) argues are central to effective teaching in his seminal text The Courage to Teach. I specifically share details that serve to highlight my privilege, as well as the spaces where, despite my privilege, I have experienced inequality. The areas of inequality I highlight are core to social policy teaching of the big five of the welfare state: education, health, housing, social services and social security (Cheyne et al., 2008; Drake, 1999). So, while the conversation is about ourselves, it is still grounded in academic content.

I also share the information to engage in a pākehā orientation of whakapapa. I explain my status as a white person, a child of British migrants, and I also name where I grew up – Urenui village and Matamata township. The inclusion of geographical information is core to my process of decolonisation, as I use it to retell stories of my connection to the land, sea, and rivers but also to share honest accounts of the racism that I have witnessed in Aotearoa. I emphasise how these experiences were troubling, confronting, and were reflected in the way the education system was structured, historically, and how aspects of these values remain in place. I also share these stories to present myself as a coloniser, a child of Empire, creating a basis to discuss settler and migrant narratives, as well as white privilege (Dalley, 2021; Fitzpatrick et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2021).

Using the concept of hegemony, students revisit these ideas throughout the class, shifting between reflecting on their individual stories (autobiography) and structure. The use of hegemony is vital to help students develop an awareness of the power structures that have shaped their personal experiences (Giroux, 2005). As the students come to understand the impact of hegemony, they move from an exploration of their personal stories as private troubles to public issues, a task that is core to critical autoethnography (Denzin, 2018). The intention is to equip them with the critical thinking skills that push them to move beyond individualised accounts of inequality to seeing inequity as a collective public issue.

My pedagogy is underpinned by a learning partnerships approach (Magolda, 2009), and by Mann’s (2001) arguments for the need to challenge the alienating nature of neoliberal HE. I use these ideas to develop an environment where students from diverse value positions are still able to have a voice, creating safety for those who might otherwise feel marginalised. Safety is created through learning partnership’s supportive components, expressed in and through classroom discussion and assessment design that validates learners’ ability to know. Part of the technique for doing this is situating class content in conjunction to learners’ experiences, something that can only be achieved by drawing on students’ stories of their personal lives. These discussion strategies make visible the co-construction of knowledge and reposition the students as experts working towards self-authorship (Magolda, 2009).

There is a clear link between my teaching design and Denzin’s (2018) arguments about the use of performance autoethnography as a political act and a way to highlight connections between agency and structure. By sharing these stories, I engage in practices connected with in the use of storytelling in critical race theory literature (Gillborn, 2010) and by those seeking to engage in the process of decolonisation through autoethnographic pedagogy (Denzin, 2018; Iosefo et al., 2020). What is important to me is ensuring that students understand the nature of structural inequality and how it is experienced as personal alienation. By doing so, I urge students to think more collectively and move away from discourses and ideas that blame the individual. But even more importantly, it helps students to develop awareness that liberal forms of equality are insufficient, that to make a genuine difference, groups need to be treated differently to work towards equality of outcomes (Cheyne et al., 2008; Drake, 1999).

Based on my ongoing relationship with Arianna, I now consciously seek to include the work of indigenous researchers and I continue to describe the power relations, racism and subjugation involved in colonisation. I also include te ao Māori into my content and practices, and to normalise te reo Māori (language) me ōna tikanga (cultural practices) (Berryman & Eley, 2017) to provide a sense of connection for the next Arianna who enters my classroom. My inclusion of indigenous material is accompanied by stories outlining my connection with Arianna, her whānau, and the support she provides in my exploration of te ao Māori. This relationship is emphasised so I can openly discuss with students the need to consider how the presentation of such knowledge, while important, could also be seen as a form of appropriation (Bullen & Flavell, 2022). I also continue to reflect on my whiteness and privilege and do my best to reveal the complexities that shape the context of Aotearoa to students, contributing what I can as an ally to the process of decolonisation (Fitzpatrick et al., 2022). An important part of this process includes continually and reflexively re-examining the ways in which my pedagogical decisions may still reinforce and reproduce colonial thinking (Moosavi, 2022; Wimpenny et al., 2022).

Concluding reflections

Our collaboration for this article was based on continuing discussions of our respective research and teaching practices. We exchange ideas because of our awareness that transformative shifts were happening for students when they encountered our different teaching practices that encompass critical autoethnography. We also exchange ideas because HE is still a colonising and disempowering location for staff and students. In our own personal struggles to survive the power relations of academia we turn to each other to negotiate through the ever-changing hoops we are asked to jump through. In guiding each other through the development of our teaching we have come to see that our capacity to make a difference in students’ lives is a timely story to share. Now more than ever it is vital to create a curriculum that allows for tino rangatiratanga (expressions of self-determination), connection to whenua (place) and central incorporation of Māori ways of seeing, being and knowing.

Arianna’s use of whenua/place in her relational praxis highlights how our emphasis on identity and positionality through personal storytelling (autoethnography) in the classroom acts not just as a decolonising force but as an empowering force for both Māori and Pākehā. The stories of our diverse students are important stories to share. Furthermore, as we seek to connect personal stories to public issues, it is important to keep students safe as they are confronted with stories of colonisation that they may not have encountered before or experience defensiveness and/or pain evoked byseeing their own privilege.

One way to do this that we have shared here is to tell students about our own personal experiences, struggles and confrontation with racism and our aspirations to decolonise. As Grande (2008) urges, we have opened ourselves up to the pain and joy of others, and by sharing our own stories we have tried to make it safe as we can for those who may feel disempowered to do so in other circumstances. This is because our critical autoethnographic pedagogy is a restorative process. It is restorative because we begin by naming the injuries, by highlighting the power relations not just embedded in structure but that which is expressed in everyday life. We use our own stories to highlight the power relations that shape our connection to place and to the levels of agency available from our subject positions. By modelling this behaviour, we make it safe for students to share their own stories; and we offer ways to help them practice negotiating the discomfort that stems from having or being denied access to privilege made visible once they leave our classrooms.

We also own the limits of the tertiary environment we work within by consciously disrupting its power structures. We do this by reducing the distance and power relations between teacher and student. We make visible the power relations that shape our experiences of the classroom, by rearranging the physical classroom space to one that encourages unity and inclusivity. We do this by sharing our own stories of struggle of when we experience or witness disempowerment and by doing so share the tools to negotiate through such experiences. We do this by teaching with compassion, empathy and aroha (love) as we build relationships with individual students; something that is made possible by our relational practice of critical autoethnography. We hope that our stories of teaching practices encourage you to become vulnerable, to shed content in the place of sharing your own stories and prioritising whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building) instead.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).